*Side Radius is the distance between the visible portion of the front sight and the visible portion of the rear sight.**Magazine weight will vary, based on the ammunition type being used.

The Glock 18 was originally designed to fulfill a counter-terrorizism role for the Austrian EKO Cobra special forces group. The Glock 18 is largely the same as the Glock 17, both in dimensions and internal components, with a couple of exceptions: The Glock 18 has a fire selector switch on the left side of slide, near the rear. The original Glock 18 also had a barrel that was approximately half an inch longer, with some slots on top to work as a compensator, to control recoil. Later, the Glock 18C was released, which used the same compensation set up as other compensated Glocks.

The Gock 18 is a locked-breach action, select-fire weapon. It can fire in semi-auto mode, like any other Glock, or fulll-auto mode. On full-auto mode, the Glock 18 has a cyclic rate of fire of 1,200 rounds a minute. The Glock 18 can use standard Glock 17 mags, the Glock 18 mags with the plus-2 bases and the Glock 33-round magazines.

Now for the big question: Can a US citizen own a Glock 18? The National Firearms Act of 1986, put an end to any more automatic weapons being legal for sale to US civilians. Any automatic weapon that was legally privately owned before May 19, 1986 can be owned and transferred between civilians (Adhering to all applicible NFA, federal, state and local laws), but the question is, where there any Glock 18's legally in the hands of civilians before May 19, 1986? This is a matter of quite a bit of debate online. I have heard here are three of them. I have heard there are five of them. I have heard there are none of them. I was not able to find a definitive source of information to settle this. Many people have seen and even fired Glock 18's at full-auto shooting events, but those were most likely dealer sample weapons, owned by Class III dealers.

In addition to the traditional Glock 18 full-auto weapons, a modified slide cover plate, with a select-fire switch. You can learn more about these on the ATF's website: http://www.atf.gov/firearms/faq/firearms-technology.html#glock-conversion None of these modified plates existed before May 19, 1986, so no civilian in the US can legally own one of these devices, without the proper Class III/SOT licensing. Interestingly, these slide plate converters will work with any model of Glock, not just the Glock 17.